Payne: Granobama’s sinking Euromodel

Posted by hpayne on June 20, 2012

(Michigan View editor Henry Payne traveled to Germany this month to revisit Berlin and Frankfurt for the first time in 28 years. He reports on what has changed in the once-divided country and what Market Socialist Europe – the troubled economic model for the Granholm and Obama administrations – portends for the U.S. Second of three parts)

Frankfurt, GermanyÂ – Policy twins Jennifer Granholm and Barack Obama both say that the way out of America’s current economic doldrums is to follow the Europe is their economic model . So how’s the model doing?

Spain, the Granobama model of green-subsidized growth, just required a $125 billion ballot from the European Union as it suffers through severe economic contraction and 24.5 percent unemployment.

Italy, Granobama’s Big Labor model, faces a national debt that is 120 percent of its GDP and an economy expected to contract by 2 percent this year, in part because new business is intimidated from creating jobs because workers – by law – have the right to appeal any dismissals to a judge.

France, Granobama’s health care model, has run up a national debt at 90 percent of GDP while its economy has stagnated at 10 percent unemployment. As a result, the country has called in new Socialist Prime Minister Francois Hollande to give it more of the same. He wants a stimulus package with more spending ” to be deployed in areas such as new technologies, renewable energy, transport and other infrastructure,” reports The Financial Times, with “higher wealth taxes, surcharges on banks and energy companies and the suppression of tax breaks.”

Sound familiar? French market socialism meet Granobama.

The result of all this failed Big Government is a continent sinking deeper in recession – accompanied by a permanent Occupy movement that blames everything on the One Percenters in the financial sector. That industry is centered here in Occupy-besieged Frankfurt, Germany. Frankfurt on the Main River is nicknamed “Mainhattan” for its status as the European Union’s banking capital – and its corresponding Manhattan-style skyline of gleaming financial headquarters including CommerzBank to Deutsche Bank. As Greece, Spain, Italy and other Granobamodels sink into bankruptcy, Frankfurt banks – the continent’s largest bondholders – have become the permanent scapegoats.

This is what America’s future looks like.

Europe’s Left has won everything that Granobama and the American Occupy movement demand and more – yet it still isn’t enough. Cradle-to-grave welfare, government-run health care, high energy prices combating global warming, state laws mandating union-friendly work rules, 50-percent of GDP federal spending, etc. is the norm across Western Europe.

The result? European per capita income is just 70 percent of their U.S. counterparts and a sea of red ink. Perpetual demonstrations protest the perpetual calls for austerity caused by the perpetual overspending and overregulation. On June 11, I witnessed police flooding the downtown historic district with shield-wielding troops and a massive police van presence in order to deter yet another demonstration from smashing shops in the city’s thriving commercial district at the height of tourist season.